Discover this Weekend League Squad Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
How can you enhance a stellar experienced squad who have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 matches?
Bring in a raft of ex- professionals that have competed at the highest level of club and global football as you target further trophies.
One Greater Manchester club fields an amateur veterans squad with nine former top-flight players in their active roster.
222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps
Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in south the city and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Tier.
The squad list this campaign features nine ex- Premier League players, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite matches.
The high-profile roster also boasts over 220 top division scores and 325 global caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.
He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former Premier League players have won 15 significant honors and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.
Famous Figures and International Stars
Ireland began turning out for the side in preseason this season through good mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.
Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.
"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!
"If you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?
"Those spectators who come and see are happy and to make a moment if they see us playing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.
"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Scenario
Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a GD of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 top-flight matches.
"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," said the player.
"I think I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd England caps.
"Our side competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.
"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.
"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
The manager manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Premier Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.
"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a